00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode number three sixty two and telling the show, I'm joined by the legendary d I Y Michigan bow hunter John Eberhart to discuss what exactly he would do in some of the deer hunting world's toughest scenarios. All right, welcome to the wire ton Podcast, brought to you by on X. Today. On the show, we've got John Eberhardt back with me. And if you're a longtime listener, you're familiar with John. He's been on here quite a few times, I think four or five, three or four somewhere in that ballpark over the years. But if you're not familiar with John, here's a really quick intro. He's one of the most successful d I Y bow owners that I know of, especially in the state of Michigan. He's got dozens of record book books. He's written multiple books which I highly recommend, such as Precision Bow Hunting and Bow Hunting White Tales that Eberhart way. He's done all of this on public land or by permission land, and he's doing it in tough locations, and he consistently has success, and he's great at telling people and teaching people how to do something similar. So, like I said, I've had John on the show over the years, You've heard kind of the basics of what he does. Some of the you know, what do you do with rubs? What do you do with traial cameras? What are you doing this? Blow blah? But I thought, what's a different kind of way that we could approach a hunter like John? How might be there some different ways we could learn from as m As I'm stewing on this, I started thinking through different scenarios and thinking, you know, what would John do in that scenario? What would John do in this scenario? And let's say you're all set up in a tree, another hunter comes waltzing by, and you've got an hour and a half left to daylight? What would John Eberhart do in that scenario? What would John do if he was dropped into a brand new property at the end of the summer and he only had one day to figure it out and prepare for the season, what would he do in that scenario. Those kinds of questions started popping in my mind, and they were the impetus for this episode. What would John Eberhart do? I think that there's something we can learn from a hunter, not just by asking him or her what do you think about X, but instead put them in a scenario and ask them to explain their thought process, what exactly they would do, why exactly they would do it, how exactly they would do it. I think that we can learn something new when you approach a topic in that kind of way, and that's that's kind of my hypothesis for today's episode. I'm thinking, I'm hoping, I'm pretty damn sure that we can get a new level of insight from John by picking his brain on a bunch of example situations. So that's what we did. I'm grilling John on one of our community's very best deer hunters, on a bunch of hypothetical situations, very specific, and we're gonna hear how he would approach it. And I gotta tell you a spoiler alert, They're gonna be a lot of cool things that we cover. I'm I'm very much looking forward to it. So I think, whether than me rambling about it. Rather than me talking about how great this episode is gonna be, we should just get into it and see if it can actually live up to that billing. I think it will. Every time I've ever talked to John, I've learned something, and uh, I trust this will be the case too, hopefully for you as well. So let's get right into it, all right. I am very excited to have back on the show with me John Eberhart. John, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Oh well, thanks for inviting me. It's uh, it's always a treat for me because because as you know, as I've told you probably every year we talk, you were one of the most influential people in the early stages of my serious deer hunting journey, and and I've grown a lot because of everything I learned from you. So it's just great whenever I can get you back on the show, because I know other people will benefit from it. To um, I've got a cool idea. I think it's a cool idea, and maybe you'll think otherwise, but I think I've got a cool idea for this chat. Um. But before we get into the real meat and potatoes, I just got to hear real quick off the bat. It's been a weird spring, a weird summer of everything going on with with COVID and and everything else. I'm just curious. Regardless of that, how do you feel about your deer hunting prospects this year? Is everything looking okay to We're able to do the scouting you needed? Is everything still on track? Uh? Well it's get Uh. My shoulder surgery hampered my season last year. Um this year, Yeah, I got out and did all my scouting, all my scouting has done. Everything looked great. Uh did some additional public land scouting, prepped up, reprepped all my old locations. Everything's cool. I'm shooting fifty pounds, I'm shooting about six arrows at a time. My shoulders I'm still having issue, but I also definitely be able to hunt. But as you well know, I don't go out and look for deer. So I just I just hunt according to the sign that I see during postseason, that you know from the previous year's run. Um, So I don't go out. I have no idea what's on the properties like hunt because I don't own anything, I don't leave anything. Everything is pretty far away from where I actually live, right now is that something that do you ever I can see an inherent benefit to that, because there's always a certain sense of surprise when you go out there. You don't quite know what's running around, and when you see a buck that you want to shoot, it's it's a holy smokes, look at this deer. I had no idea who was out here. That's that's really cool. But do you ever find yourself occasionally hearing about somebody else who does get to specifically target one buck over course of weeks or months or years. Does that appeal to it all? Or is it you know, you're really happy that you got uh. I. You know, there are times when some buddy that actually hunts the same properties as me tells me there's a big buck there, or they show me a motion picture. Because I never hunted property by myself. It's public or free knock on door for permission. So if I have somebody shown me a picture, yeah, that definitely raises my level and makes me concentrate more on that piece of property. Um, you know, and that's what Miles Keller used to do. Miles Keller is an old school guy, but you know he always targeted a single buck, you know, he'd drive around through the countryside with his job and he'd see big bucks and then he'd get permission. This is back in the seventies and eighties, and he would target those individual bucks. And yeah, that's always that always makes it a different type of a challenge. Um. But when you're hunting like I do, where you're trying to go to a lot of different places, you just don't have the time to put out cameras and take inventories. It's too far away. Um. I just you know, when I like, when I go out of state, I hunt cameras exclusively. We put cameras at every single location, and we hunt according to what we see on the cameras. Um. And but there's always big bucks there. You know, last two seasons in Michigan, I haven't even seen a Pope and young buck at all. There's time when I go to Kansas, I'll see fifteen Pope young bucks in a week. So you know, it's definitely different here as you well know. And I've had pretty good success on not doing a lot of preseason scouting and turning bucks nocturnal before season even opens. Um. You know, I've shot a few bucks, a few book bucks, early in the season. So, um, I'm kind of doing what I do and I like doing it. But once in a blue moon, I will know there's a big buck on specific property and I will actually target that buck and try to kill it. So that was what I was. Yeah, so I was curious, I was. That's exactly what I was gonna ask next. I was trying to rack my brain to think back through all the past stories I've heard from you, trying to think about if there ever was a year where a certain buck got under your skin and just changed all your plans and you had to focus on him. Um, it sounds like that has happened before. Yeah, it happened in There was a big buck on a little two acre parcel that I hunt and somebody told me about him. I had never seen him, so I went in there, you know, during my during September, during a hard rain and being two acres, I used to hunt it. I used to hunt this property and somebody seeing this buck across the road after dark, so I went and got permission to hunt it again. And the lady could never let anybody else hunter. Nobody else had asked because it's such a small parcel. There was a cattail marsh that butted up to her property, and right at the back of her little two acres there was a little transition zone into that cattail marsh. So I went in there and I on the edge of the cat tails. There was a bunch of red brush, and I went in there like on September, and you know, three weeks after the bucks are all rubbed out, the bigger bucks, and it was all crashed up, you know, that just rubs all over the place down that edge. So I prepped a tree because it was rainy and I wasn't gonna make a lot of noise, and you know, it masked my noise, and I prepped a tree and that buck was kind of under my skin and I shot him opening morning at eight. It was orange ten point. Yeah, that's a heck of a buck for two act or property especially. Yeah. It just there's very few years, you know, and where I hunt in public and stuff that I hunt where things work out perfectly, and that was definitely one of them. Yeah, So that kind of fits really well. That story fits very well into my idea for our chat because I think this is our fourth, our fourth or fifth one of these we've done together, and over all those years, I've kind of grilled you on a bunch of different tactics. I've asked you, you know, what do you think about trail cameras, what do you think about scrapes? What do you think about this? That, and that? So we've got that kind of high level understanding of what you do and how you do it pretty well. So I started to think, you know, what would be a way to get it a new like the next level of nuance from you. And my idea is this, John, I thought that I could just pitch out a variety of different scenarios to you. Outline a scenario, and then what I'd like to hear from you is what would you do in that situation? I think we could learn from all these different examples. So I'll put something out there and then I'd be really curious to hear what would you do, How would you do it? Why would you do it? Maybe there's a story from the past where this actually happened to you and you can tell us that. Um, but I've got some interesting situations lined up that I'm really interested to hear how you would tackle. So if your game, I want to start playing. What would John neighborheard do. I'm always game. It might take me a few seconds to sid and think about something to process this tough that's perfect process. I love it. I love it. I think that would be great. So so let's do that, John, And let's start with something that's a little bit like what you just described. It's a scenario that some people might find themselves here in the coming weeks. Let's say it is late August and out of the blue, maybe the mailman stopped by your house and you got into a conversation with him, and he happens to find out you're a deer hunter, and you know he's been your mailman for twenty years, and he says, you know what, John, you can hunt my property. I've got, you know, forty acres or whatever, just back here, go ahead hunt it. But it's the last week August, and all you have is one week of available time that you could go see it, scout it, prep it. You've got like a day and a half, two days max. Can you walk me through how would you use that day and a half of weekend time to absolutely get the most you could out of this brand new property you picked up on the last weekend of August. Yeah, because that's happened to me quite a few times. Actually. Um, what I would probably do is, I would grill the guy. You know, if he owned forty acres, that's a pretty you know, that's a for Michigan, that's that's an average parcel. I would ask him if he knows of any decent bucks on the property, um, that he has possibly seen, because if he was a male man, that means he's probably leading his house pretty early and coming in in the evening, coming home. Um. And I would ask him. I'd obviously look at an aerial and I'd ask him what the layout of his property is. Aside from looking at an arial, just to see what borders his property, I'd ask him, okay, on your bordering properties, you know how much hunting pressure is on the bordering properties. Is there a swamp on your property? Is there a swamp that butts up to your property? You know where your mate maybe coming out of a swamp in the evening, you know, right at the edge of darkness because it butts right up to his fence line. Um, I'd basically grilled, not grilled because the guy had given me permission, but I'd ask him a lot of questions, and it's very possible once I looked at an aerial photo of it, you know, if it was just open timber, or twenty acres of open timber with no under story and there wasn't any betting area on it, if it was you know, ten acres of pasture, if there wasn't any oak trees on it, because he would know if he owned it, if there was olk on it or some apple trees. I would ask him what the actual property looked like, what it contained. If it did have oaks, would they brought up to some semblance of security cover for a daytime visits, or if they're just oaks out in open timber, where a mature buck in Michigan is not going to access that place during daylight hours because it's too vulnerable with no understory to for security cover. And then I would go from there if if there was something that I didn't think was conducive or better than what I already have prepped. You know, because I have forty trees preps going into the fall. I may only on ten of them or twelve, but I've got trees ready. So if it's not something that I think is going to be overpowering as far as this is something where I think I can win here and kill something on a pretty short term time frame because it's got a betting area, or it's got some apple trees button up the security cover, or it's got you know, oaks that butt uped a security cover. Um. You know, it would totally depend on the layout of the property. I may just put it off and totally not even go there, and you know, scouted during postseason the next the next spring. But if if it had everything I needed, I'd wait for a hard, rainy day, or I'd wait for a very windy day because the forty acre parcels really really small. As far as if they had betting area on it, you know, it's gonna be a relatively small betting area. So I'd wait for a nasty day where it's gonna mask the majority of my noise and the majority of my scent, even though I would be going in santlock. Um, I'd go in on a nasty day, and I would very cautiously look the property over. If I thought the property was going to be conducive to have a mature book on it, that might move on that property during daylight hours, and I would also take because it's only forty acres, I would take my prep gear and if there was something that I saw that looked conducive for daytime movements, i'd prep it right there on the spot so I didn't have to make a second trip. So when you when you say you'd walk it very carefully, can you elaborate on exactly what you mean by that? Would you just go and check out the few spots on the map look the best, or are you going to cover the whole thing or just the edges that? How literally are you going to check it? I'm going to check primarily the ages that there were a betting area on it. I would would definitely not intrude into the betting area in late August. There's no way I would. I would definitely look at the edges of the betting area that if there was any mast or fruit trees. And the cool thing about going in there in late August, I would know not only if their water masts or fruit trees, I would also know if they were burying food, you know, because I could see the acorns or apples in the tree if it had that. So I would just go the edges of any you know, projected bedding areas, and and I would just walk gingerly and slowly because I wouldn't want to spook anything. Because a lot of times, you know, when when you go in and you preseason scout, which I don't do anymore unless it's in a situation like this, which is very rare. But when you go in and you pre seasoned scout, a lot of times the bucks are not bedded back deep into the bedding areas there, They're on the perimeter edges of them. So you've gotta be really really cautious, you know, and move slow, um, you know, and you just gotta be as quiet as you possibly can because you don't want to intrude on anything. I did a live webinar the other day and a guy had a situation very similar to that. He actually pulled in on this piece of property and he saw a buck that had been bettered in a fence room and it was moving across a little opening in a pasture towards September. So he didn't go over there, but he asked me how I would go about setting up on that, and I said, what I would do is Obviously, that buck is probably betted in that fence room because the fence rol he said, had a lot of heavy security cover. It was probably betted on the edge where he could see out into the little open pasture, and he probably had the wind coming in from his back where he could smell anything coming in from from the other side of the open area. So I said, what I would do is I would go around through the timber, you know, a way outside of the open pasture, and I would go back around to where that buck was heading. I would do it on a rainy or a windy day, come back in the himber from the opposite side, and I'd go and try and find out why, you know, for buck to get up and move, there's a reason he was going in that direction. And you know this time of year it was food based. It was probably food based, so there was probably something over there, some form of a food source, you know, maybe an early apple tree. It is way too early for dropping acorns. But I'd find out why the deer was going that place, and if he could find that location, set up a tree, and then go back out the same way, because if he if he were to go across that open pasture and that buck was still bettered in the same place he was when he when he saw him come out of there. Probably that buck is going to visually see him going across that opening, so he wants to definitely go around where there's not going to be a visual and it's nasty days not yet, he press the tree that buck's not going to hear him, and then he's going to go back out the same way he came in. And then on opening evening he could go back in the same way way around and go to that spot and hopefully that buck gets up and keeps that same pattern and he might have an opportunity yet. Interesting, So here's another scenario. Then it's a little bit related to what you just described there. Um as he mentioned that that buck was probably heading where he was because of a food related attracting of some kind. Um. I want to kind of understand better how you choose between potential early season spots, you know, opening night set kind of situation. So let's assume it's October one, and of all the different places you have prepped, of all the different properties you have, let's say you're down to two different stand sites that seem ideal for early season. We're gonna say that, you know, all the conditions seem lined up for these spots, but one of them is overlooking. Let's say a couple of apple trees, and the other one is set up a big it's next to a big, lone white oak tree. Both of them are dropping. They're both kind of ideal. Can you walk me through how you would try to pick between those two. Maybe you've got a clear cut favorite between the two food sources, or maybe you could describe what other factors you would try to look at to determine which is your top option of those two good options. That one is really, really, really simple because I always do. Let's say, let's say I've got I think thisser have act again like trees prepped. Probably twenty of those trees are going to be potential first day or two or three of season trees. They're gonna be early season feeding locations or potentially of a primary scrape area on the edge of the standing cornfield. So what I always do, and I've done this for years, I will put on snuntlock and I'll try and wait for a windy day. But it's not that critical, and I do what I call a speed tour now. Because Michigan season opens on September. On October one, I usually wait until at least September before I do a speed tour. And what a speed tour consists of. I haven't been any of these locations since at least April, so i've been there all summer. A speed tour consists of visiting all of my existing potential early season locations at mass and fruit trees or scrape areas and seeing if they're actually bearing food or if the scrapes are active in a scrape along age of a crop field, I won't hunt it unless it's in standing corn. I don't care how active it is. It's got to be standing corn with security cover. So once I do that, you know if there's multiple Let's say there's ten locations that are dropping masked or fruit, and let's say there's one location that's that's the scrape areas standing and it's next to a standing cornfield. When I do this on the reason I do this on September is because the bucks have been rubbed out for at least two weeks, if not three. Most big bucks up north are drubbed out easily by September five, so there will be according to how much DOT traffic is visiting these feeding locations. There will be buck sign around these locations, so I will hunt them according to the amount of rub sign, how high the rubs are on the trees. You know, if it's at an apple tree, it's not uncommon at all by September twenty they have scrapes underneath it. It's even not uncommon have scrapes underneath a white oak tree if there's not a lot of white oaks in the area, if it's isolated. Um and keep in mind, all of my early season locations everything is security cover oriented, so I don't ever prep any locations unless there's some form of perimeter security cover around what I termed the kill zone at a destination spot like a master fruit tree or scrape area. And I also won't set up if there's not excellent transitions security cover to that kill location from a known betting area because of mature buck in a pressured state like you and I live in, They're not going to get out of a betting area and walk through two hundred yards of open timber with no understory security cover to access a feeding location. Even if the feeding location has has a security cover around its perimeter, so it has to meet it has to fulfill the security, recover or cover requirements for me to even set it up in the first place. And then I base which ones I'm going to hunt according to the amount of buck sign that was at the location and the type of buck sign at the location. When I do my speed tours and it I'll do about three speed tours to hit all the public land and private prices, and I only have two private parcels right on. But it will usually take three days to do my speed tours, and they're all at it. Answer the question, answered it perfectly. I've got one additional question, and I feel like I might have asked you this question several years ago. I can't remember if I asked you this slight version of it. And here's what I'm curious about. I know that you don't look at wind direction when choosing stand sites because of your scent control, you're not worried about dear smelling you. But do you ever take into account how dear might want to use the wind? I can't remember if I asked you that or not. Do you ever think about, well, this buck might want to approach an apple tree with the wind somewhat in his favor, So this stand would give that dear in advantage versus that stand. Does that ever enter your mind? Yes, it does, And your dad asked me that, But that's okay. I get asked that a lot, and it's a it's a very very viable question. And yes, the answer is, I do set up specific certain locations, especially scrape areas. If I go in and I find a scrape area and it's it's in a like a terrain feature dump where it might be where all gridge drops down into a cat tail mars or or there's some cat tails on this side, and there's briars over here, and there's a night edge line, and there's a river here where general skirt the river. You know, basically where several train features dumped together. Um, if I if I if there's a scrape area there and there is a tree on the south or southeast side of the scrape area and it's fifteen to twenty yards from the scrapes themselves, that's more than likely the tree I will set up because it's extremely common, and I've shot two monster Bucks in Michigan this way. And again I'm not worried about getting winded. That never ever enters my mind. But it's really really common for a mature buck to come in, especially in the middle of the day. They do this a lot midday during the pre rutting road faces, to come in and skirt around the actual scrape area or come in from the down wind side, maybe the cards, and they will just set check the scrapes without actually going into the scrape area because the scrape area is open. So scrape areas are always in an open area. It's always a small opening someplace. So in two thousand and four, for instance, I I shot a hundred or not it was a hundred fifty. This is the vact same size as the one I shot in fourteen. It was under four or under a fifty four inch ten point, and he did exactly that. I was hunting between two betting areas and there was a there was a pinch point, and there was a scrape area right there because it can find dough traffic, and when there's confined dough traffic and there's a lot of dough traffic, that's where bucks makes scrapes. All buck activity during the rough phases revolves around dough traffic, so that's where they lay their dominance markers. So I'm up in this tree in my saddle, and it was like it was election day two thousand four and I voted in the morning, and I drove down. And this was in southern Michigan, is over by Grand Rapids, actually, and I drove down and I got my tree. I don't know. I think it was around one o'clock, which is kind of late, and but to thirty here comes this buck out of this bedding area. And he was actually coming from he was coming from up the actually up wind of the or downwind of the scrapes. No upwind of the scripts. He was coming in from the north. The wind was out of the north, so he was actually going with the wind. But when I seen him coming in, the foliages down so I can see a little bit of a distance. As he was coming in, I thought he was going to come into the scrapes because he was making a bee line right at the scrapes. When he got about fifty yards from the scrapes, he started going east and he went around the scrapes to the east, and I had a lane that drugs and I had a shooting lane that direction. So I swung under n eighty degrees around the tree to the opposite side, and by the time got around there, his butt was just going through my shooting lane. So I swung back around to my original position. And now he's coming in and he's making a circle, and he's coming around behind me. Well, he got behind me, so now he is directly down wind of the scrapes and directly down wind of me. And he was at about forty yards and he snopped, stopped, and he sniffed, and a smaller bucket came in in and urinated in the scrapes about an hour earlier, so he smelled that, and he turned and he walked right up and he stopped right under my tree. And my tree is about it was about fifteen yards from the scrapes. But he walked directly to my tree. So I can't take that shot. I won't take that direct straight on shot, more straight down shot. So I'm sitting there, and I mean, if I would have spit, it would have went on. He was directly under the tree, and he just raised his nose and did a little lift curl and you know, did a little like that, and he turned back around. You know, they hadn't been a dough there, So he turned back around and went in the exact same footsteps he came in from. And he started to turn back around, and now he's going back north. He's going back around, and he's going through that east shooting lane that I had. So I swung back around the tree and this time I'm ready. And when he got when he got in the shooting lane, I just did a vocal doll blat and stopped him. And I was a full drawn eye shot him. So you know, that was a situation where I set that tree up basically because I know big Bucks like to scent check certain areas from down wind. Now I have found when I'm hunting at apple trees, bucks will typically the wind is irrelevant. They're coming in to eat eat apples. They're usually going to come in from wherever the thickest cover is. And and I've been preaching this for a long time. So if there's excellent security cover on the backside of an apple tree from the tree I'm hunting from, I'll rape the front of that tree so I can shoot to the back side, because usually they'll come in and they'll stay in the security her, stick their neck out a little bit, eat a couple of apples, turn around, go back through the security cover. They won't come out into the open underneath the tree like the other Dose and Sporting Bucks will. They'll stay tight to that security cover. So in that situation, it's not so much a win situation as much as is a security cover oriented situation where they want to be in the security cover where they got to quick exit. Okay, that that makes sense. Okay, let's let's throw another scenario that's that's similar to this, or it's kind of a next step from what we've been describing. Were in this early season situation, you picked your top food source and based off your speed tour, you're set up. It's a great night. Conditions look great, you're excited about it. And let's say maybe two hours give or take before dark. Another hunter comes in. Right, you've got all properties that you share with other people. Another hunter comes walking through. He's got his end blowing into really great cover. You know, he's not practicing scent control as well as you are, so he stinks he's being careless and he kind of walks right through your good stuff and he he goes out of sight, but you know he made he made a serious ruckus and and probably did some damage. In that scenario, do you stick it out or do you call it and and say, all right, the hunts screwed, I'm out of here, and I cut my losses, or maybe even try to go to a new location. You know, of what would you do in that scenario. If it's early enough, It's pretty rare that I hunt any location, whether it be public, private, or whatever where I don't have multiple trees prepped. So if it's early enough and it's an afternoon hunt, yeah I would. I would get down and move. If it's if it's late enough where there's no way I can move in time, I'm gonna sit there and stick it out, even though I know my eyes are killing anything or pretty close to zero. But I've had that situation happened a lot. I've also had it happened a lot where I'm in my tree way before daylight on public land. You know, I'm in my tree an hour and a half for daylight. You know, I'm really excited about the spot. And then you know, I see guys pull up on the road because the foliage is down and it's a three quarters of a mile away. I can see the headlights and then all of a sudden, I see these dudes with these bright ass head lamps that are six D Loomens. Yeah, and I have heer run by me, you know, half far before daylight as these guys are coming in, and I know my hunts screwed for the day. But there was one time, and this was in seven UM, and this was on an all day sit. I had a guy walked right under my tree. I actually said something to him because this was on a twenty acre parcel and I knew the other there's two other guys that hunted it, and I knew this guy wasn't honting them. And I actually quietly when he was right underneath me, and he just had a red plaid shirt on and a fair of blue jeans and a compound bote, I said, hey, you know, and he looked up and he didn't see me at first because I was up, so I and finally I got his attention and I said, hey, you're not I don't think you're supposed to be here and all the guys they have permission, and he said yeah, you're right, I'm lost. I came in from the other property, which was a bullshit use my breads. But anyway, he left, he left, and he walked. He walked out on one of my shooting lanes, and it was actually the shooting lane that I expected if I did get an opportunity to get a shot at that's that's the lane I thought the deer would cross on. And the guy had leather boots, so I looked at I looked. I looked at him as he was walking away, and I knew if a deer came into that lane, because the wind was blowing from the betting area, a wet you know, across that lane. So I knew if a deer was coming out of that bedding area and he came into that lane, I'd have to take the shot before it cut those leather boot tracks that that guy had just walked out on, because I knew, without a doubt that would bust that deer if it was a big, mature deer, which was what I was after. And it's straight up twelve o'clock, I mean it was to the minute twelve o'clock noon, and it's big fourteen point came came down through the bedding area sunny day, absolutely gorgeous blue bird day, and this guy came. This guy went through it about ten thirty and I shot that buck and I drew my bow just as his nose was coming into that lane. And I make my lanes relatively wide. You know a lot of times I see people with shooting lanes and I'm like, how in the hell they ever get a shot here? How did they stop a deer in that narrow of a shooting lane? But anyway, I stopped that dear just probably two ft before you know, he would have sniffed that guy's leather boot um older and uh, and I shot him, and it was that was a team point. It was a difficult four team. Would you do anything differently if now I don't know what date you said that was, but back to the original scenarios, that was actually I think November one, Okay, So maybe that answers my question for me, because I was gonna say, if I changed the date from October one to November, would you be more apt to stick it out even if you had a bunch of time in the day, just because you know it's the rut and you know, anything can happened. There could be a buck from three miles away that comes through. I did that day. Yeah, I thought about moving because I was planning on sitting all day, and he went through ten thirty. But it was such a good spot, and it was pre rot between two betting areas, and I love the hunt betting areas or transition zones between two betting areas, and that's what this was a transition route between two betting areas with lots of security cover. Um. So I thought about getting down, but it was such a good location. And he went dead center through the middle of that lane. In that lane, that shooting lane was probably four yards wide. So I figured if a buck came from either direction in that shooting lane, I could stop him and take a shot before you get that guy's tracks. Ye. Now, okay, let's look at another possibility here. Let's look at a different kind of uh negative uh. What's the where I'm looking for a negative variable? So that scenario is another hunter coming through. What if you're in a perfect spot, You're in one of your primetime locations, it's late October or earlier November, you're in one of your honey holes. You've waited all year to go to and a big mature buck steps out. He's about to step into a shooting lane, and then he spots you, or you make a noise and he catches you know, looks up at your silhouette, or something happens and he knows that the jig is up, there's a person here, and he bolts out of there. What do you do in that inn area? Do you give up that day? Do you give up up in that spot for days? Do you give up on it for a week or would you come back there at some point because it's so good and other deer might be in the area. What's your thought process in that scenario? I have to say, Mark, I've never had that happen in Michigan. Um, you know, on out of the saddle and I behind the tree so I don't get picked u which is a major issue I'm having with a lot of that's YouTube crap on saddle hunting, because these guys are hunting in small trees and sitting on spots where they can't move around and maneuver around the tree so they don't get picked. So I'm having major issues with that and on my YouTube videos that I'm gonna come out with you're gonna see why. But on that I've never had that happen to me where I've gotten picked in and a deer is busted. Now, when I was in Iowa, I had a buck come through and it was honored forty and shade point and he stopped and he picked me. He saw me in the tree because I was in a tree, I couldn't move around to the back side because they had too much balin. And and this was in n no, no, this was in two thousand and one, um. But anyway, he stopped and he looked at me for about four seconds and it was just like on TV where they look at you and it's like whatever, and they put their head back down and kept going and I shot him. So I shot him that time. But I guess if we're gonna just you know, say, okay, you're sitting in a tree and a buck a big buck bus too odd to me. Hunting that location again would be pretty close to zero that year, and I think that would affect even if that buck did make it through that year. I think that buck would remember that location and definitely looking and look in that location for a person when he came into that spot. I think their memories are good enough to do that. I know does do that was my next thing. I was gonna say, what about with the dough would you how you get busted by a doll for one reason or another, same scenario, but it's a doll this time. What's the plan? Then stick it out? Oh yeah, I'd stick it out with a doll. And it would depend on where I was, if I if I were next to a swamp, or if I were in a bedding area, you know, during the rud phases, And a dope came in and she spooked and she did the typical snortnutes yeah, and left her inter digital gland order and snorted and makes all kind of noise. Um, if I could get down and quietly go someplace outside, would definitely do that to give you an example of a dope kill. And this happened that she's thirty years ago. I had a friend, um, and he was hunting in December on public land up by Evert and and if he had a decent buck. And when I see a decent buck three years ago, it was like a nine two and a half year old eight point you know. Um, But he was trying to kill it, and it was kind of on the edge of the swampy area and there was snow on the ground, and he was baiting at the time. He had he had a pile of beats out and I don't bait. But anyway, I was talking to him one day and this was probably around mid December, and he said that, man, I've got this dough and she comes out, she she has two fonds. Whether she'll come out through the swamp and stop on the edge of that, right on the edge of the security cover, and she'll look at that bait pile and she looks up at me. And he's in a big oak. He was in this huge white oak tree and he was hunting out of a tree stand I on out of the saddle. Um. He was in this big white oak and his his stand was obviously against the tree facing the bait pile, so he had the whole big trunk of the tree is his background. But again it's December, so all the foliage is down. And he said two times in a row that doe came out, stopped on that edge, looked in the tree, saw him snorted up, and you know, for thirty seconds and then turn around ran back in and he never saw another deer both evenings. And I said, well, do you want me to kill her? And he said he said, yeah, right, how are you going to kill her? And this guy was a good hunter. I mean he killed a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of little bucks. And I said, well, I didn't add I'm not gonna tell you how. I should just ask you if you want her dead. And he he was kind of cocky like I was, and he said, yeah, if you think you can kill her, I'll will show you where it's as we showed him where it's at. And so that evening, Um, I got up in the tree and the wind was right because that's before I was using sell lock, so the wind was perfect for this evening. The one was blown from the swamp across the bay to the tree and I got up about eight feet above his tree stand and I got on the eighty degrees on the back side of the tree. And this tree was totally big enough to block my silver wet. So just like he said, almost to the minute, said, here comes this big dog coming coming through the swamp. I could see her. She coming right to that edge of two flonds were behind her, and she stopped and she looked at that tree up in the tree at the stand, and looked back down at the bait. She looked at the side, you know, it put it took her probably three or four minutes, and then she walked out to the bait. And there's probably a this is probably a three day gap between the last night he haunted it and this this sun walked out to the bait. And when she when she was eating the beats, she was facing the tree so she could see so she could see if somebody was in that stand, you know, she could see him out of the peripheral vision, if there earth there was any movement in that tree. Well, then the fonds came out, and you know how the flonds are there turning off different sides. As long as moms they're they're fine. So finally, after about ten minutes, she slightly turned so she was she got she felt comfortable, and she turned where she was quartering about forty five degrees towards the tree. And I just slightly leaned out to the side and took the shot and shot her. And that guy's just freaked out. It's really cool. That's pretty nice when you can show your buddy up like that. Right. Oh yeah, Well I wanted to prove it to myself because if I couldn't have done it would have been kind of Oh man, I uh, I got another one for you. We're we're to pivot a little bit. We're somewhere mid season and you are heading in to hunt some public land you had You've got a pre set location that you had prepared at some point. Well, well, we'll wait a minute. When you say mid season, what do you mean by mid season? Okay, you're right, good, thank you for calling me out. I should be more specific. I would not go in during mid October to on public land in Michigan. It would be a waste of my time. Yep. I should say mid season, like late October, early November, give or take somewhere in that pre rut to rut time frame. Okay, and you've got a spot you're going towards that you feel good about. You're heading in, sneaking in. You've got a great access route. But along the way you come across just some sign that you can't ignore. It's just it's rubbed up like crazy. There's a bunch of fresh scrapes insecurity cover and there's an apple tree maybe that's been pounded by doughs, just like all these things are stacking it up and it looks unbelievably good. But there's no quality trees in the area at all. Even if you happen to have your freelance kit with you to hang up in a tree. Uh, there's no tree. It's for whatever reason, it's to super shrubby stuff. And you're stuck with either going to your predetermined location or try to figure some other way to hunt this sign. Would you hunt that super fresh sign on the ground in some kind of impromptu way, or would you say that I gotta stick with my plan, I'll come back and set a stand up here tomorrow or something. I would stick to my plan. I would stick to my plan if it was if it was impromptu, because to make to make a sufficient ground blind requires some work. And if you have to break weeds or cut weeds or do anything cutting, you're leaving in order. You know, I may be in sell lock, so I'm not leaving any order. But if I'm doing a lot of cutting or breaking vegetation to make a makeshift ground blind, um leading older there that is not normal for that particular location, on that particular you know, at that particular time, there's just too much vegetable cleaning out or vegetation order that could alter a mature bucks mindset. Is he's coming into what at that point would be a destination location for him. So I would definitely go on about my plan. Now what about Well, I guess I accept that answer, and I'm going to move on to this next area, in which go ahead. What were you going to say? What about? Well? I was curious about if there was a tree there, would you absolutely, without a question, there was a tree there, I would absolutely if the sign warrants it, I definitely set the tree up and hunter right then. But here's but wouldn't in that scenario you would have been going to a preset location. So are you saying you would go back to your truck, get some kind of climbing uh ascension tool, and then walk back to that location, put in steps or whatever, and go up in the tree. Well, typically, when I'm hunting public land, I'm not hunting a preset location. It maybe a preset location as far as you know, I know where I'm going and there's adequate openings for shots. But you know, I'm still toting my climbing gear with me, so my climbing gear would fit on the tree that was accessible at this hot location. I would use my climbing gear on that location as long as long as there was you know, a lot of times when you're on public land, you'll see locations that are hot, but there's no trees where you have a shot opportunity because you obviously can't cut branches and clear shooting lanes to that specific spot. And the tree that you can set up does not give you a shot opportunity to that spot. So you know, it would totally depends on the situation, but I'm I would be carrying my prep fear with me anyway. Okay, now you get to your tree, you're hunting it, and this is this is a scenari that's happened to all of us, I think, and it's happened to me plenty over the years, and I've I've debated both internally and even externally on this podcast about what the right decision is to make in this scenario. And this scenarios, you're sitting in a great location, you know you're in there for a reason deer should be passing through for several reasons that you've predetermined. But the big mature buck shows up and he's eight yards you know away, he's off in the distance, and you see him move somewhere out of sight. You now are stuck sitting and thinking should I relocate to that spot for tomorrow? Should I stick it out where I'm in now? Because I think that it's more likely that another one will come through here for some reason, because of all these other reasons that you originally set up there. I guess what I'm trying to say is how quick are you to move based off of a siting, and what factors have to do in place for you to say, yeah, I'm moving right away to that spot. Well as far as moving, obviously, if I see a big buck and I'm set in a specific location, that buck has already moved through that location where I just saw it, So I'm obviously not going to get down and move there on during that particular hunt. But would I definitely move and go back there. I would definitely go back and look and see what the reason was that he was there the next day possibly um and that situation and has actually happened to me before. The biggest I've ever shot in my life was a u inter and it was in Iowa, and I was actually sitting and I had a decoy out, and I was down in a swamp and I was gonna be on an all day sat and um I saw a bunch of deer activity, but two hundred yards away, because again the foliages down. This was in mid November. The foliage was down. I saw a deer activity, not necessarily buck activity, big bucket activity, just dear activity couple hundred yards away. So I got down at about ten o'clock, packed up the decoy, put him in my military double bag, and stored him where, you know, so I could get him on my exit after dark. And I just you know, I'm in stuntlock again. And I took all my climbing gear out when I descended the tree, just slowly walked back through there found but back where I got to the area where I had seen that deer traffic earlier in the morning. Um Man, I just saw a scrape area from home. I mean there was for monster scrapes here. One of the men had two huge clumps of deer droppings all clumped together and they were big dropping, so I knew it was a big buck. And there was still urine in that particular scrape that I could see a spot of urine in it, which out and off the urine was is the droppings were old that the urine could have been something else. So I prepped a tree and I shot that that hunter eight inter that afternoon. It was a twelve point um. In another time, and this one was in Michigan, Um, I was sitting in a tree and I about eighty yards away two evenings in a row. I actually hunted a tree two times in a row, and both both times there was a decent buck. He wasn't a monster, but I saw a decent buck about seventy eight yards away going down the saint. He went the same route both evenings in a row. So the next evening I went back in there and freelanced, and I prepped a tree, and I actually put out a dope decoy and that evening net. But because there wasn't any trees right where he was going through, so I had to I took a decoy and I was set up about forty yards from where he was going through on top of this little bridge kind of like and um, and he saw the decoy. He came right over and I shot him in fifteen yards and it wasn't a monster, but it was a good buck for the time. That was thirty years ago too. Speaking of decoys, I know that historically you've been, you know, willing to do something like that or use calls or rattle when you're out of state, like Iowa or Ohio or Kansas or something. But in Michigan, from from everything I can remember ever reading from you and hearing from you, you're usually very very conservative of that stuff. Um. It's a two part question. Number one, has that changed at all? And number two, I want to paint one specific scenario to consider of that with Let's say you're hunting in a location in this big mature buck steps out in Michigan just out of range, Let's say, I don't know, thirty yards whatever, let's say five or ten yards outside of whatever you're comfortable shooting ranges. Would you called him in that scenario or is it still like, where's that line for you in Michigan? If he was if he was that far away thirty forty yards, it would depend on what was between him and me. Um, that's pretty close. Um, since thirty forty yards and there was really heavy security cover between him and me. I might possibly do a really quick soft inhale runt because I carry an inhale and an exhale rount call with me. Or I might possibly do just a little light vocal you know, a dobl at domat um. But if there were no you know, if he's forty yards away and there was nothing, but you know a little bit of brush between me and him, and I do some sort of a vocal thing to try and move him closer. You know, if he's a big enough buck, he's going to take a look in that direction. And if there's nothing there, visual, he's not gonna he's not stupid, he ain't gonna come into it. It might happen out west, but not here. UM. So you know, in that scenario, I don't know if I would do anything or not. But there has been several times in Michigan during the first few days of season. And I'll give you one really good scenario. Um. This was in nine UM, and this was on October two, and this was a morning hunt, and I was up in a tree. UM, and these deer were transitioning through some timber with some form. There was a little bit of understory in this timber, and they were they were probably two hundred yards away, and all I could see was their legs below the canopy. I did they I had no clue they were heading into a betting area. It was probably on our yards in front of them. I had no idea if there was a dozor bucks um, so I took out I took out my rattle bag, and I made a light sparring sequence about ten seconds, you know, with a little gap in between, and they both turned and they started coming my direction. Well, when they got about forty yards from me, they were facing my tree, and I could tell they were both bucks. It was an eight and a ten point, and they actually totally lost interest. It took them took them a couple of minutes to get that far, and they had lost interest, and they started actually eating acorns under an oak tree, and and I'm like, well, maybe they'll keep coming. And then they got lost interests and eating acorns and they turned and started heading back towards that betting area again. So now they're about fifty yards away. They're moving away from me again. So they're too close for me to do a sparring sequence again because the sparring sequence takes time, and it's easier if they stopped. You know, they were within visual sight of me now because I can see them at first. They couldn't see me when I rattled the first time, but they could visually see me in the tree. And obviously, if I'm gonna do a sparring sequence that takes five seconds, you know they're gonna turn their head immediately and they're gonna see it's coming from up in a tree, and they're obviously not going to come in. So I took out my again. I took out my soft inhale grunt call and turned around the opposite side. You know, I was in my saddle and just made it really soft like grunt, and they both turned and came right to the tree and I shot the gun point at twelve yards. So so yeah, I rattled in Michigan. I've I've shot several bucks that make book in of the thirty one, I've shot several of that make book in Michigan by rattling them in or or grunting them in. That's not the norm, though I'd say, maybe I don't know, maybe six or seven of them I've actually used calls, but most of them are you know, I am hunting spots on the merits of the location, you know, their destination locations, of their interiors of betting areas, and I hunt them according to the merits that I chose them for, and I don't like to make any alterations. I want the deer to come in naturally. That's why I picked that location. So I will never do any type of a tactic on the first hunt at a location for that year I want. I want the location to work on the merits I chose it for. I don't want to boog it up by maybe you know, maybe maybe when I decide to do a rattle sequence because I'm gonna do it like a half hour or four dark, maybe that buck is transitioning to the spot and he doesn't like the way I did it, you know, and they got to be in the right frame of mind through fond of that stuff. In Michigan, it's not like out West. So you know, I'm not gonna booger a destination location. I'm not going to booger it up with doing tactics on my first hunt, But if I hunt there maybe a couple of times, let's say during Let's say it's during the rut phases, and I hunt a really hot location and it's a primary scrape area or it's a feeding location where there's a lot of dough activity, and I hunt it and I don't see anything other than maybe a spike corner or four pointer and two dolls. You know, if the sign is that hot, there's an excellent chance that the buck that I'm after. If I know there's some mature buck sign there because the rubs are tall, but the buck I'm after is with a hot dog, you know, he's he could be doped up. So I'm gonna hunt that maybe two or three hunts in a row, and maybe on the second evening. If I own it the next morning, then I on it to the next evening. If I don't see anything half hour or four dark, I may do a rattle sequence, you know, a sparring sequence, or you know, adults and dough beliefs or something to try and bring something in. But you know, because a lot of times during the rock phases, a location will warrant you to hunt it several times in a row, because the buck that actually left that fine maybe with hot dough during the time you're in that tree, but you know, once her twenty eight hour thirty two hour cycles overready's gonna start looking for the next doe, and then that that time he may come to that spot, you know, in search of the next est stuff. A lot of the stuff you just talked about is kind of all influenced by hunting pressure, right, Like whether or not you're in a call and spil like Michigan or rattle and spolic Michigan's, it's because of hunting pressure impacts. Yeah. So so here's something that I've wondered about. I you tell me if you think differently in this, but I think that today there are more very well educated bow hunters in the woods than ever before. Right, You've you've got all your great books out there, there's podcasts, there's websites, there's magazines. There's a lot of people that not even just the V stuff, right, there's TV stuff for a long time, but now there's a lot of information out there about how to kill bucks in real world scenarios, not like TV. So there's a lot of guys that understand hunting pressure there's a lot of people that know how to get into places where bucks will move in daylight, even in heavily pressured states. So, given the fact that there's more hunters hunting this kind of way that are relatively savvy, is there anything you're doing differently now than you did ten years ago, Let's say, given the fact that there's more guys and girls out there hunting the eber Heart way. Uh No, I'm still kind of hunting the same way. But the last two years I haven't killed anything in Michigan. I haven't seen them bucket Michigan. So but you know, a lot, even back in the two thousand's and the ninth and then in the nineties, you know, there were there was always a year or two here and there that I didn't kill something. So but I'm still hunting in the exact same way. There's there are certain things I don't do now that I used to do. And first book, I had a whole chapter on staging areas and I've kind of totally given that up. You know, staging areas worked great if you're hunting. Staging areas out west where a big buck will actually get up during daylight hours and move out to some peripheral area where you know that he could potentially intercept those going out into a feeding location. But I've just found in Michigan that mature bucks not going to get up and make that daytime movement because it's just too vulnerable to go on stage where those may go by in the in the evening, or stage in the morning where those may come by after daylight, and then if nothing came by of interest, he has to physically get up and move to a betting area and be vulnerable making that movement. So I don't I don't hunt staging areas in Michigan anymore. They just haven't worked out for me on mature bucks. Interesting, you just mentioned that the last two years you haven't seen a single pope and young buck, and I know that you're after or that kind of caliber buck, and that I'm very interested to hear how you handle that scenario itself, Like what happens when hunt after hunt after hunt across all these different places you're going to you're not seeing a single target buck. What what did you do in that scenario? Do you end up going to new property after new property after new property just trying to figure something out or do you hunker down in your best spot during the rut because you know eventually one has to come through? Do you not sleep for two weeks at a time because you're so stressed about it. I'm just wondering, how do how do you tactically and mentally handle that? That's funny, That's so funny. No, I don't get I don't get stressed about it anymore. I'm too old for that. I I used to. I mean I used to as like, God, I'm not killing anything. I gotta get out there more more frequently. And I used to. I used to actually start arguments with my wife to give me a reason to go out hunting. I'm gonna go out hunting. I'm serious, I did, I do. I don't stress about that anymore. Um, if things don't work out, they don't work out. And yeah, you know, I feel like I'm a figure in the hunting industry and and it's kind of embarrassing not to kill something. But I'm also a realist and most people know I won't hunt leases, I won't hunt manage properties. I just will not do that because I preach about hunting pre permission properties and public lands. So there's gonna be seasons when you shouldn't be successful. You can't if you're not in that type of property, you can't be successful every year. You just can't do it. It's impossible if you're in a pressured state like we are. Speaking of public. Then let's let's let's run one more public scenario by you. And this is one that I know you've talked a little bit about the past, and some of the things you mentioned already are probably applicable, but I just want to hear exactly what you do. Let's say, for whatever reason you have to go to piece of public land for your runt hunt's let's say it's out of state run hunt and you haven't been able to ever be on this property before. You've got five days? What do you do in that first day? Is that a full day scout? Is that a little bit scout during midday instead of stand hunt that night? What's what's day one of your five days? Brand new public peace during the rent scouting handed down? To blow off? First day to scout. I want to have at least at least two, three or four locations ready and then um, then I don't feel like I'm hunting backwards even if it's a five day hunt, I got four days day. Actually do hunting where I've got preset locations, you know, locations that are ready to go. I should say, they may not only have the stuff in them, but but I know where they are and I can go to them. Um. And I never, I have never, ever in my life when I go out of state, I've never went and pre scout of them. Ever. They are all locations where i'd go and I scout them and then I hunt. So, UM, I don't go. I don't go pre scout anything. Now obviously, you know, when I'm going to Kansas, I got drawn for Kansas this year, I'm hunting places that I've hunted before, so I don't really have to scout them. I just have to go, you know, prep prep those locations again. But if I'm going to a brand new piece of property public or whatever, um, out of state, Yeah, I do not do any pre scouting on a pre on a trip prior to when I'm going hunting. And and it's been kind of interesting because it's it's worked well for me. Um, you know. And I went to Ohio one time and shot up about a hundred ten point and It was kind of interesting because I was gonna be a five day hunt, and when I scouted it the first day, the property was just laid out where there was no way I could hunt this property in the morning without spooking deer because to go on the property I had to go through areas where deer would potentially defeating. So I only had five days to hunt. I blew off the first day, prepped two locations, and now I got four days left, and I'm blowing off morning. So I got four sis and they're all evening and thank god, I shot this under fifty inch gen point on the second evening of those four days I had left to hunt. So I grew up mornings. All I would do on morning entries would be spooking deer. Was there any way to use those mornings in a in a positive way, Like did you glass or anything? Were able to get anything out of your mornings? Or is it literally because of the setup, you just got to stay out and and put all your cards into the evening um Because of what you described, I felt very good when I scouted that. I when I scouted I I spooked deer. You know, I spoked that a deer that day, but I felt really really good about the two locations that I prepped that No, I didn't go out and glass the next morning or anything, because I'm not gonna hunt morning, so that morning movement wouldn't really mean anything to me anyway. And then there was another time in Ohio which I didn't kill anything. UM. And this was on a parcel and I went down there in mid December. The other one was in December. Never snow on the ground when I shot that hundred fifty or that was after their gun season ended. Um. The other one was also after gun season, and I went in and I I made a big mistake because I usually look at the weather when I go out of state, especially if I'm going in December, and I usually try to go in there snow on the ground, fresh snow, so I'm looking at sign made within the last twenty four hours. UM, And this time I didn't. I went and there was no snow on the ground, but it was getting down into the low twenties at night, and the leaves were just super super crispy. And I prepped a couple of locations in the first morning I went in. I mean, I just I spooked deer quarter mile away get running through the wood, and so again I totally blew off the mornings. But I did something really unique on this hunt. Even though I didn't kill anything, I learned something. And this was just a few years ago. Um after I blew all those deer out of there. Every morning after that I went, I slept in and I got up about eight o'clock and I went to my two locations and I actually walked into the tree that I was gonna hunt in the evening. And I did this early in the morning because the deer even on my evening entry. The first evening I I spooked year betted within like two hundred yards of the tree I was gonna hunt because the leaves were so noisy. So I went into both of my locations from then on about eight o'clock between eight and nine in the morning, and I spooked gear each time, and I could hear them, you know, I could see the flags and they ran like three eighths of a mile away before they went into the betting area. But then when I actually hunted in the evenings, I didn't have to worry about my entry because I wasn't spooking deer with my evening entry because I had already spooked him out early in the morning. Yet the deer, it was such a long gap between when I spooked him and the evening hunt that they were filtering back out from that distant betting area and they were actually going by me, you know, in the evening before dark. And the biggest buck I saw was a hundred ten injury and I didn't shoot it, so I didn't kill anything. But I learned something about, you know, spooking deer with the morning entry really early, so that they would still filter back out in the evening, but they were far enough where my evening entry to that location and didn't spook. Dear, do you kind of understand what I'm saying? I do I follow you exactly? Have you ever would is it? Is that something you would do again in a future scenario then if you had that type of deal, even if it's a place you know, well yeah, yeah, absolutely, But to go on and out of state hunt again, I would never ever go out of state again without looking at the weather and making sure there was snow on the ground or else it was going to be above thirty five degrees. Speaking of your out of state stuff, you mentioned how a lot of your out of state scouting as trail camera focused. Now, Um, yeah, can you has there been an evolution of your trail camera strategy at all over the last five six years, because I know early on, you know, some of the things you were you were, you weren't as into them. Now it seems like, are you maybe a little bit more and have you changed what you do or how you do it so that it works better for you in that scenario where or is it about the same. I still don't use motion cameras in Michigan, you know, I may put one out, you know, one or aout one year. The last two years, I haven't had any trail cameras. But when I'm out of state, I have found that I can actually put trail cameras out on all the locations and they're all in pinch points or whether it's scrape areas and where I'm when I'm going to Kansas o Iowa, and I have found I can actually visit the cameras and it doesn't affect gear movements. Um, it just doesn't bother those gear out there. You know, I can check the cameras and if if I'm taking my two boys now, John and Joe. And you know, we'll usually have a dozen locations prepped and they all have cameras. Will check every damn camera during the during the middle of the day out there. You don't have to hunt all day because it's not necessary. The dear the big bucks moving the mornings and the evenings, just like all the other deer. So it's just it's just a lot easier. So we check the cameras and we hunt according to what's on the cameras. And it seems like checking the cameras doesn't affect the deer traffic at the location in Michigan. You know, I it. I could see putting out cameras where they that internet wise back to your phones or your computer, um, where you don't have to make a physical visit an intrusion. Um. But because my properties are so far away from where I live, and there's you know, there's a lot of different public lands, I can't afford to put those out. They'll just get stolen, and those stuckers are expensive, so I don't do that. But out of state, yeah, I use cameras of the time. Interesting, all right, John, I know you've got to run here soon. UM, so I'm gonna give this one last question and then I'll let you get out of here. Here's the scenario. Let's say I rule the world. I'm in control of the world, I'm in control of your life, and I'm a real jerk, and I'm gonna put you in a tough position here. I'm going to tell you that I'm going to take away your ability to deer hunt for the next ten years. You lose your hunting rights, you lose your bow, You your shoulder can't pull back a bow, and there's no other options. I'm taking it away. You can't deer hunt for the next ten years unless unless you kill a three and a half year old buck or older this year in a heavily pressure state like Michigan. But I'm only gonna give you one day to do it. You get one day this year to kill that three and a half year old or older. What I want to know is what day of the year are you're gonna pick for your one hunt this year. That's a lot of high stakes on this hunt. What's the day and what is the tree stand? You pick? Described the spot, what's your you know, everything matters for this hunt? Described the spot? In the day you're gonna choose to put it all out there. It's gonna be November one, and it's probably gonna be in the interior of a five acre betting area or possibly in all days fit in a good location with heavy security transition cover between two betting areas on November one, where a buck's gonna sund check you know, betting area to betting areas as long as they've got security covered for you know, early ester STOs. November one is pre rock um. You know death in Michigan, pre ruts definitely the best time to hunt, you know, October through let's say November five, because the mature bucks are still typically on some form of a routine. You know, they're checking their primary scrape areas, are looking for those early ester STOs. But in Michigan there's so few mature dominant bucks um that during the peak run they're typically dot up, so you know, you just don't get as many opportunities during peak run. But that November first time frame, if I were in a relatively small betting area, UM, and I was in a decent tree and I had you know, shooting lanes and five directions like you know, spokes down a wheel. That's probably where i'd be because they're gonna be in there surgeon for those early esterus those and if there's if there with a possible early esterus though, they're gonna push him down into the betting areas to do their breeding. And as you well know, during those breeding cycles, they'll move around within the betting area. You know, he'll breed her and they'll she'll bed down. He may stand up next to her for twenty minutes or the half hour, and then you know he'll go nudge her and she she may get up and run thirty forty yards and then he'll breed her again. Um, So they move around in the betting areas and it's during the daylight hours, so that I feel like that would be probably my best opportunity. And what what does that ideal betting area look like? Because there's a lot of different scenarios. It could be a cattail marsh, It could be like a red oz or dogwood thicket. It could be you know, young cedars. Like if you had to paint that perfect betting area for this scenario, what would that look like? My perfect bet are betting area would be a grove of spruce trees with some scattered mature timber in it. Um. Spruce trees are awesome for betting because spruce trees grow to the ground. They always stayed tight to the ground. Yet white pines, red pines, uh, cedar trees, you know, they have openings underneath them. They where as they mature, the branches below them die. So spruce trees with scattered timber in it. Because spruce trees, because you know, they have a form at the bottom. Uh, there's always gonna be gaps between the trees. So if you find an area you know, a little opening and and grow up with spruce with some open timber or something like that, uh, typically there's gonna be converging runways in some form of an opening because it's path the least resistance, and that would be that would be my perfect scenario. And also in an area like that where I know deer betting in it, and would also be a great place to do a little sparring sequence. Here in their couple of couple they've been all days sit and the you know, a couple of two or three times during the day I do a sparring sequence or possibly even some uh cold, Doug Leaf calls m Well, I like the sound of it. John. I I'm betting that you'll get your hunting rights the next ten years because that sounds like a good scenario. So I think you'll be with your skill set and experience in that location on November one. I believe in you. I've stop the last two years. This this will be your year, John, I really, I really appreciate taking the time to do this. Um. I know you've got some cool stuff coming out on YouTube. You're doing a whole bunch of neat things. Where can people go these days to find your latest work? Well, we just started a YouTube channel. It's called eber Heart's Outdoors. So that's kind of what I'm most excited about. And other than that, my website is uh www dot dear dash John dot com. Um, but the YouTube thing is what I'm probably most excited about right now. Eber Heart's out Doors gonna be a lot of good information coming out on that in the next few months. I'm looking forward to. The videos I've seen so far have been great, so I'll definitely be keeping tabs on it. And uh, John, thank you so much. I hope I can convince you to keep on doing these at least yearly like we've been doing because I always learned something. I love it. Thanks Marks for the opportunity. I really appreciate them. Good luck everybody out there. Yes, thank you, John eight. One more thing that John forgot to mention but later did tell me that he said I could share with you is that there is an eber Heart's signature saddle coming out in August, sold through Tethered Tethered Saddles or what I run. I love them. They've got a special design now specifically with eber Hearts input. It's a two panel seat system. You're gonna have to stay tuned to hear more soon. Definitely be checking out what Tether's got coming out. I'm sure they will give some announcements soon, but it looks pretty awesome. Check out eber Heart's signature saddle. And with that said, hopefully you feel the same way as I do, which is that that was a pretty fun way to talk to a great deer hunter. I think I'm gonna keep doing this. I think we're gonna bring on some other guys that we've talked to in the past that we thought we know well. But I'm gonna put them in some tough situations. I'll put maybe some of the same questions, maybe a bunch of new questions like this, and see what they would do. What would I don't know, what would Dan Infalt do, What would Mark Drury do? What would what would Dan Johnson do? Now there's a question, So stay tuned for those episodes in the future. Hopefully, I hope, I hope You're hunting season preparations would come along well, and I think we should shut it down now. So thank you so much for listening, thanks for being a part of this community, and until next time, stay wired to hun

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